Of Blood And Roses
by Shiroi Yoru
Summary: An AkitoShigure fic. Contains MAJOR spoilers for volume 17, so if you haven't read it yet and don't want to know, then don't read it. Set somewhere during the series, doesn't matter exactly when.
1. My Darkness

**((OF BLOOD AND ROSES))**

This time it's an Akito/Shigure fic. Contains MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR spoilers for volume 17. If you're following the English release of the manga and don't want a major spoiler to be revealed, thus ruining the series for you, stop reading NOW. Anyway... other than that, please read! And review! Yes, review! sweatdrop

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**Chapter 1: My Darkness**

_I always hated the darkness. It reminded me of how alone I really was._

She leaned out of the window, feeling the brush of the crisp autumn air against her face. It was a beautiful feeling,  
the cold. It made her feel alive.

She heard the faint sounds of laughter from somewhere in the gardens. Suddenly angered, she whirled around, spying Haru and Momiji taking a walk in the gardens, talking and laughing. She gripped the windowsill angrily and scowled in the direction of the two juunishi. How dare they? How dare they laugh... how dare they be so happy, when she was stuck here,  
trapped in this miserable existence, in this room... She hated this room. But she loved it all the same. It was her prison and her sanctuary. Her room. Her life...

"Akito-san?"

She whirled around, rage blazing in her eyes. How dare this insolent persion interrupt her--?

She opened her mouth to shout at the intruder, but found herself mysteriously robbed of her voice when she saw who had so ungraciously entered her room.

What was that look in his eyes? Was that pity? Or was it something else...?

Something about it made it even angrier.

Recovering her voice, she advanced on him. "How dare you?" she shouted. He made a sound that vagely resembled the squeak of a dying mouse. "Get out!" she screamed. "Get out!" He backed away slowly, the emotion in his eyes growing stronger, joined by another one. Fear? Was he afraid of her? She hoped so. All the juunishi should be afraid of her. After all, she was God. They were merely mortal. Worthless.

He stopped at the door, pleading with her silently with those pathetic eyes of his. What was wrong with him? It made her sick, all of a sudden.

"Get out," she hissed, venom in her voice and on her face. He sighed.

In a fit of rage, she grabbed a vase from a small table near the door and flung it at him. He fled, and the vase crashed against the wall, sending water, glass, and rose petals flying about the room.

She collapsed, the anger leaving her in a flood as violent as the one it had come in. As she sat there, shaking, on the floor, she noticed the vivid petals littering the previously immaculate tatami mats in the room. They looked like blood.

An evil light creeping into her eyes, she reached for one of the shards of glass and pressed it into her hand, watching with detached interest as her blood dripped onto the floor, the glass, the petals, staining it, ruining it, marking it as hers. The pain felt good, crisp, like the autumn air. It didn't hurt. Why should it? In her short life she had known more than her share of physical pain. It made it all the more easy to inflict it on others, on those arrogant mortals who dared defy the power of God.

"I am God," she murmured in a frenzied whisper, as she traced the cut in her right hand with the fingers of her left. "I am God... I am supreme..." she dug her finger deeper into the wound, smothering it in blood. "No mortals dare defy me..." she ran the bloody finger down the tatami, making a straight line. "The ones who dare will feel my wrath..."

Another line.

"I will always rule above them."

And another.

"I..."

Another line.

"...am..."

Another.

"...God."

Another line.

She admired her bloody masterpiece.

"Death," she whispered. "That is the punishment for defying God..."

Standing in the hall outside of Akito's room, Shigure looked down at the small box in his hands. What had he been thinking? What had he been feeling? Why had he thought that...

He had only wanted her to listen.

He sighed, then turned away.


	2. What Was I Wanting?

**((OF BLOOD AND ROSES))**

Yay! Chapter 2 is written! It's a little longer. I'm working at making my chapters not so short... but... XP Anyway, thanks to the person who reviewed. D Enjoy!

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**Chapter 2: What Was I Wanting?**

_It's dark here. Filled with the darkness of death._

x-x-x-x-x

"Akito-san, it's time for your checkup."

Akito scowled as Hatori appeared in a silhouette against her door.

"Fine," she hissed, curling herself into a tight ball.

Hatori sighed. He hated his job. Silently, he ruffled through his doctor's kit and triumphantly produced a stethoscope. He glanced expectantly at Akito, who only glared at him. He sighed again, and said in an exasperated tone, "It doesn't hurt, Akito-san. We've done this... how many times? You know that, Akito-san."

Akito sighed and uncurled herself. She didn't care if it "didn't hurt". The whole process annoyed her. It was a waste of her precious time. Besides, she wanted to be alone right now.

Hatori did his motions quickly and quietly, moving the stethoscope over her chest, over her heart. For some reason, it made her stiffen with a strange cold rage.  
She didn't like him touching her... but when had she ever minded? He was just her doctor. A servant of God.

Hatori gazed at some papers for a moment, then sighed yet again. "All right, I lied, Akito-san. It's going to hurt a little bit. I have to give you a shot," he said in a soft tone, as if he were talking to a child. How dare he speak to God that way? He was a mere servant, a stupid mortal, on Earth only to do her bidding. How dare he underestimate her intelligence like that?

"Just a mo--" Hatori was interrupted as his doctor's kit suddenly went flying violently across the room, his tools scattering across the floor. Startled, he glanced up at his patient, who was now standing above him, his needle gripped in her hand. "Akito-san, give me back the sh--" he was met with a slap across the face.

"HOW DARE YOU?" she screamed, still gripping the needle. "Please, Akito-sa--" "I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU!" she shouted. Hatori shrank back, suddenly feeling a pang of fear. There was no reasong with her when she was like this. "I DON'T NEED YOU!" Hatori grabbed for his tools, desperately trying to return them to his back before she did something violent... or something stupid. "YOU FOOLISH MORTAL! I AM GOD!" she screeched, plunging the shot into her arm. Without thinking, Hatori lunged at her and grabbed the needle, ignoring her screams. Heart pounding, he grabbed his kit and fled from the room, his forgotten stethoscope sent flying through the air after him.

Akito collapsed on the floor, clutching her bleeding arm and panting. How dare he... how dare he... how dare he...

She buried her face in her hands and the room was filled with the echoes of her sobs.

x-x-x-x-x

"Shigure-san! Breakfast!" Tohru called cheerily from the kitchen. "Shigure-san... Shigure-san? Are you there?" Concerned, Tohru stuck her head out from the door to find Yuki and Kyou sitting at the table expectantly, but no Shigure. "Ah!" she exclaimed, extremely confused. "U-um... where is Shigure-san? Doesn't he want breakfast?" Tohru glanced nervously from Yuki to Kyou and back again, who only looked at each other.

Finally, Yuki spoke. "I think he's still in his room. He's locked himself up in there since he got back from the main house yesterday."

Kyou shot Yuki a weird look. "Huh? I didn't think anything Akito could do would affect that jellyfish." Yuki shook his head. "I don't know..."

"Ah!" Tohru exclaimed. "Is he all right? Should I go get him?" She looked from Kyou to Yuki a few times before deciding, "I-I'll go get him."

x-x-x-x-x

Shigure sighed. "It's my fault, after all," he murmured, running his hands down his face. He spotted a vase, and slowly walked towards it. "My flower..." he whispered. "My angel... my twisted angel." He let out a hoarse laugh, then returned to his bed and sat down again. "It's my fault..." he shook his head again.  
"My..."

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Um... Shigure-san?" Tohru swallowed. "Breakfast is..." Startled, Shigure looked up at the door and let out a sigh. He was being foolish. "I'll be down in a moment," he called to the door. He heard Tohru breathe a sigh of relief, then turn back down the stairs.  
Slowly, he stood up again, then turned to face the door. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but stopped himself, and laughed again.

Then he opened the door and went to face the world.

x-x-x-x-x

Alone in the darkness, Akito ran through the dark abyss of her mind. What had she been doing? What had she been thinking? And... what had she been wanting?

"Him..." she murmured, then looked up suddenly, shocked by the thought. "Why... him...?" An expression of desperate sadness crossed her face for a moment, but was as gone as quickly as it had come. "Idiots..." she hissed. "They're all idiots. Servants of God..."

She noticed that the bloodstains on the tatami mats had been cleaned up, probably by one of the maids. Angrily, she ran her finger over the place where her beautiful "death" had been. "I won't let them touch me anymore," she murmured. "I hate them. All of them."

And with that, she curled up in a corner of her futon and drifted into troubled sleep.


	3. A Cruel Destiny

**((OF BLOOD AND ROSES))**

Yes, finally--it's the long-awaited Chapter 3! Just kidding... I doubt many people actually care. Although I did get more reviews... Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! I'm sorry it's short again... I have to try to make it longer next time...

As for YoukoLove and samie-the-authoress, who pointed out that I had gotten Akito's gender wrong... No I didn't. That's what I meant, when I said, "major spoilers for volume 17"...so, sorry if I just ruined the series for you. Now that that's cleared up...

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**Chapter 3: A Cruel Destiny**

_You can't ever know what is hiding in the darkness, waiting to take your soul away._

x-x-x-x-x

Shigure leaned back in his chair, staring at his computer screen. He couldn't think of anything to write. "Damn..." he sighed. "The one time that I'm actually trying to put effort into this, and I can't think of what should happen next." He rested his chin in his hands and thought.

"This isn't getting anywhere," he mumbled. He got up and wandered towards the front door. "I need to get out..." he paused, and sighed. "I could go to the main"  
A cloud crossed his face. "No," he said to himself. "I don't think that would be a good idea." He turned and looked down the hall, towards his study. He gazed upward for a moment, and an idea came to him. As he walked back towards his computer, he decided, "He could fall in love..."

x-x-x-x-x

The voices were only dim murmurs, floating through her head and reverberating painfully. She grimaced and opened her eyes. "Go away," she hissed hoarsely. "Go away!"

Startled, Hatori looked up. "Akito-san, you're awake..."

She struggled to sit, her head pounding. "Go away!" she tried again. Hatori and one of the maids stared at her. "I don't want you here!" she cried.

"Akito-san... you really shouldn't get up. You're sick," Hatori reminded her. "Go back to sleep. We'll leave." He said something to the maid and gestured towards the door.  
He gave her a last worried glance, then left the room.

Once they were gone, Akito tried to get up again, but every time she sat up, her head cried out in agony and she had to lie down again. She finally gave up and curled up on her futon. She hated this. Why did she always have to be sick? Wasn't it bad enough that she was going to die? Her face contorted in anger. It wasn't fair. How dare they enjoy themselves, while she had to suffer here, day after day, constantly reminded of her fate and her curse? It wasn't enough that she had to suffer. They had to suffer too. It was only right, she reasoned. She was God, and they were her subjects. Of course they had to obey her. It was their destiny... and it would remain that way until the day they all died.

x-x-x-x-x

"Shigure?" Yuki called. He dropped his backpack in the entry hall. "Maybe he's in his study..." he mumbled, then shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't think Shigure ever actually works."

Nevertheless, he wandered down the hall, seeing if Shigure was there. "Shigure?" he called. "Shigure? Are you--"

A shocking sight met his eyes. Shigure was there, at his computer, diligently typing away. "Shi--" Yuki began, but looked at his cousin one more time, at the half-crazed look in his eyes, and shook his head. He backed slowly out of the door, and thought to himself that something very strange was happening.

x-x-x-x-x

_I want him here. I want to see him. I want him here so I can touch him again..._

x-x-x-x-x

Shigure sighed, and leaned back again. He wiped his brow, then scrolled up to admire his handiwork. "Mitchan will love this," he chuckled.

He sat there for a moment, his face illuminated only by the flickering light from the computer screen. He frowned, and a name came into his mind. He almost said it,  
quietly, but didn't. One should not use the name of God in vain.

He stood up and walked to the window, thrusting open the curtains with defiance. He expected sunlight to filter through the room, but was met only with more darkness.  
"How long have I been in here?" he mused, suddenly startled. "I must look like a mess," he laughed, and stepped outside.

"Oh, Shigure-san!" a voice greeted him from the hall. "You missed dinner!" Tohru called cheerily. "I came in and told you, but you didn't look up, and you were working so hard, I thought it would be bad to disturb you... especially since Mitchan-san called and said your deadline was tomorrow!" She sat there and smiled ditzily for a moment, before saying, "Oh yes! I saved some food for you, if you want some! It's in the kitchen!"

"Thank you, Tohru-kun," he said softly.

"Okay!" Tohru cried, then pranced off to her room.

Shigure went to the kitchen and served himself some rice. There was fish, too, and God knows what else Tohru had made, but he wasn't very hungry. He thought about his story for a moment, and reflected how similar to his life it was...

x-x-x-x-x

_I want him here, but I can't understand why._

_Why are you here, in my dream, to torment me?_


End file.
